Birds of India #85 : Chukar

We hope you liked the posts on the Snow Leopard and the Blue Sheep from our winter trek in Ladakh, Kashmir, which we braved in sub zero conditions. Apart from these animals, a few birds do stay behind in the Hemis national park and rough it out during the harsh winter. From among these, the Chukar should get a special mention because you find them in small flocks almost everywhere in the Ladakh region.

These birds are so well camouflaged that it is literally impossible to spot them against the rocky slopes in spite of their noisy behavior. If spotting them is difficult, photographing them is a much stiffer challenge given that these birds are constantly on the move as they are foraging for seeds of plants submerged under the snow or in the rocky terrain. They are quite beautiful and make for interesting compositions, when they would perch on a cliff’s edge.

Here are some of the images that we managed to get of this ubiquitous, but shy subject.

12 Comments

I have started looking forward to your weekend updates! This one has so beautifully captured the Chukar – like you say easy to spot but very very difficult to photograph. They are also extremely shy as I realized through all my attempts at photographing these. Good stuff overall! Cheers